


Interrupt The Dark

by Wordweaver



Category: One Piece
Genre: Bushido - Freeform, Complete, M/M, Mihawk POV, Nakamaship, One Shot, Repressed Emotions, Zoro training with Mihawk, hints of zosan if you look hard enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 15:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10811787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordweaver/pseuds/Wordweaver
Summary: Mihawk reflects on being the master of an uninvited pupil.





	Interrupt The Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeelacedwords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeelacedwords/gifts).



 

* * *

 

 

_It might be lonelier_  
_Without the Loneliness -_  
_I’m so accustomed to my Fate -_  
_Perhaps the Other – Peace -_  
_Would interrupt the Dark_

_\- Emily Dickinson_

 

* * *

 

 

 

The ring of blade meeting blade is quick and short, like a prayer bowl being struck. Mihawk watches the next moment unfold in his mind’s eye before he makes it happen, turning his wrist and following through.

This time Yoru meets the flesh of Zoro’s upper arm, cutting an oblique line that reddens and spills even as the younger swordsman finishes his own strike: an effort that Mihawk evades with ease. He takes one step sideways, lowering his black blade: Zoro hisses a curse, his eyes flicking down to the wound on his arm for just a moment before he takes stance again.

Mihawk keeps Yoru lowered. “You are injured.”

“It’s nothing.” Zoro spits this, ignoring the blood that is spreading down his skin.

The wound is not deep precisely because Mihawk meant it not to be so. But that does not mean he means it to be taken lightly. “It shows you had a flaw in your defence. Were we fighting in earnest you would now have only one arm.” He deliberately lifts Yoru and sheathes the sword at his back, before folding his arms.

 

 

“We’re stopping training?” Zoro’s voice rises, in a way that betrays his dismay. Just for a moment Mihawk is tempted to take pity on his pupil, and relent.

But he despises weakness. In himself most of all. His voice is harsh when he speaks again. “A swordsman cannot afford to indulge in distractions.”

A flush comes onto Zoro’s face, spreading like a wine stain under the bronze skin. Like it always does when the youth is in the grip of some strong emotion. Usually anger. Showing his feelings this way is one of the many things he will have to curb, if he truly wants to become what he aspires to. As a good teacher, Mihawk will break him of the habit.

 

 

“I wasn’t distracted.” Zoro’s voice is almost sullen, like the sulky teenager he is still too close to being.

“You failed to maintain your concentration.” Mihawk says this dispassionately. “Your technique was poor.”

Zoro’s lips press together in a tight line and a muscle jumps in his jaw. But he doesn’t make another retort. Inwardly, Mihawk is pleased. The boy is learning some self control, at least. “There is no point continuing with training today. Your mind is elsewhere.”

“I’m not - ”

“Enough. Tend to your wound.” Mihawk turns and walks away across the courtyard, not giving the younger swordsman an opportunity to negotiate. Mihawk is in charge here: he is the master, Zoro the pupil. It is a dynamic that he has to remind Zoro of on an almost daily basis, by the way he speaks to him; the way he issues commands; the way he enforces discipline, by refusing to meet Zoro halfway. Zoro is here on sufferance, and he pleaded for this on his knees. Even then, he still told Mihawk he wanted to surpass him. That uneasy mix of submission and arrogance, necessity and pride, that Mihawk remembers well from the first time they met.

 

 

He remembers too how Zoro’s nakama reacted to the outcome of their duel. The ruined planking of the deck beneath Mihawk’s feet patterned with Zoro’s blood, the boy falling backwards into the arms of the sea. And from the nearby _Baratie_ the animal howl of Straw Hat, crying his first mate’s name. The primal rage of the devil fruit user, hurling himself over to launch an attack at Mihawk. An attack that was only checked when Straw Hat realised Zoro was still alive.

Zoro is a pirate: his captain’s right-hand man, a powerful contender in his own right. But this castle is not a pirate ship, with its anarchic camaraderie. Mihawk is not Zoro’s nakama. The only bond between them is the one of master and pupil. That, and the intention Zoro has to one day kill him.

 

 

Behind him as he walks away Mihawk hears the younger man breathing hard, from frustration or from the exertion of their fight. Mihawk keeps going. It’s another lesson for Zoro to understand. Everything that happens here is a lesson, if Zoro has the wit to learn from it.

The youth is still callow enough that he thinks swordsmanship is mostly about skill: strength, and speed, and flawless technique; so he works at those with according diligence. What he is less quick to grasp yet is that his keenest weapon is his mind, if he can learn to hone it. This will be Zoro’s hardest lesson to master, Mihawk has surmised; and he’s not sure if the younger man will succeed. It’s not that the boy is stupid: it’s that up to now he’s believed that the reason he wins his fights is because he’s stronger. He has undervalued his most important asset, his ability to think. To focus. To anticipate. To adapt. To strategise.

Mental strength is what divides living fighters from dead ones, as Mihawk knows only too well. Not just the cultivation of haki; although that is a useful talent which he is already pleased to see budding in Zoro. No: the ability to think clearly, coolly, dispassionately, when your opponent may be rendered less effective by bloodlust or rage.

 

 

Mihawk enters the castle and walks up the stone stairs to his room, placing Yoru on the wall-mounted rests the sword occupies when it is not at his back. Walks to the chair nearby, close enough to the open window that moving air reaches it, and sits down. Considers Zoro’s unsatisfactory performance in training today.

Zoro is here because he wants, ultimately, to leave: to return to his nakama. To be a stronger fighter, more able to protect that ragtag bunch of pirates he has fallen in with. To be a worthier first mate for Straw Hat, whom it’s obvious the young swordsman has a fierce loyalty to, as unbreakable as his own will.

And there is someone else significant too, Mihawk is almost sure. The way Zoro scours the newspapers when they infrequently arrive, reading and re-reading any brief mentions of where Straw Hat is suspected to be. As if the young swordsman is hoping to see someone else’s name there too, even fleetingly. Some acknowledgement of a particular life still being lived.

 

 

When Zoro fails to find whatever – or whoever - he’s looking for in these scanty slips of information, these secondhand rumours that have found their way into newsprint, it always impacts negatively on his training. The boy’s mood sours; his concentration falters; he makes mistakes, over-compensates, becomes sloppy. Like today. It makes Mihawk angry and he’s considered banning outside news altogether from the castle; except Perona would find some way of subverting his edict. The whining ghost princess doesn’t really like Zoro, but she’s cannily realised that he’s an ally in her eternal project to drive Mihawk insane with irritation.

No: news of the petty politicking and skirmishes that make up the outside world will find its way in. And Mihawk himself isn’t so stupid as to turn a blind eye to what’s unfolding, in the New World. Only a fool leaves a candle unattended, to find it has become a blazing inferno, raging out of control.

 

 

So Zoro will still get those fragments of hope, that Straw Hat and maybe his other nakama are still alive. That they will be there when he goes to the rendezvous they agreed, after two years apart. Hope can be useful emotion, so Mihawk doesn’t gainsay it. Even though he knows that there are as many ways to die out there on the ocean as there are waves rolling across it. Zoro’s hope may not be misguided: Straw Hat and his crew seem to have a knack for survival, and with the likes of Rayleigh and Bartholomew Kuma getting involved this game is far from over. Not to mention that infernal Red-Hair.

It’s only when hope becomes a distraction – wishing for things that aren’t yet fact – that it becomes a hindrance. Another facet of the jewel that is discipline, is the determination to focus on what _is._ Acceptance is another word for this; but it’s not a word that Mihawk likes. It implies resignation; submission to fate, which it definitely is not.

Perhaps a better phrase would be clear-sightedness: training oneself to see what is actually there. The nickname that has attached itself to him is no accident. _Hawk-Eyes._ A clarity of focus, especially on the movements of one’s prey.

 

 

A sound catches Mihawk’s attention, through the open window. A hard grunt, followed by the grating of stone against stone.

He stands up and walks to the window: looks out, although he already knows what he will see. Down in the courtyard below among the ruined walls and balustrades, Zoro crouching down, two very large lumps of broken masonry in his hands. The sword cut on his arm now roughly covered by the black bandana he always wears, a makeshift bandage.

Zoro extends his arms up until they are level with his shoulders: then slowly lifts out of his crouch, up into standing. Holds himself there for a few seconds, before slowly lowering down into a crouch again. Then he repeats the lift, with the same control. Muscles in his arms and shoulders and legs corded with effort, sweat visible trickling down his face and neck even at this distance.

He will do the reps over and over, forcing his body to toughen further. In the first few months on Kuraigana Island he worked his muscles to the point of injury, until Mihawk stated that if the young man continued such a display of recklessness he would leave the island by sunset, or face the consequences. In this as in everything else, Zoro had to learn discipline.

 

 

Outside in the courtyard Zoro lifts himself up again, bearing his makeshift weights. The harsh exhale of his breath has an angry sound. The young swordsman probably _is_  angry, after the premature termination of their training session, but that is not an impediment. Anger is another thing that if properly controlled can be honed like a fine strong blade, and used to the same deadly effect. Mihawk isn’t trying to break Zoro’s anger: he’s trying to cultivate it. Train it into a form that will be useful.

Mihawk himself rarely entertains anger any more. He is able to feel its first delicate, destructive flowering: recognise its colour, its distinctive energy. Then he transforms it, as he does with all emotions, into something more useful. And for the rare times when that doesn’t work, there is always fine wine.

 

 

There is a sound of shattering stone outside. Down in the courtyard Zoro is standing empty-handed, having just thrown the two heavy pieces of broken masonry at a wall. Small fragments of stone spit and tumble onto the ground at his feet as he stands there, shoulders rigid, hands clenched into fists.

 _Unsuccessful sublimation,_ Mihawk thinks. _Another lesson learned._

Zoro is hard on himself. Mihawk is harder. Because that is what this path requires. To be the best, to stand atop a pinnacle that countless challengers strive to make their own. Zoro will learn what he needs to learn here, or he will die. Either here, or at some point in the future when he is fighting for his nakama: it matters little.

Mihawk himself has never needed nakama. He has never needed anything to motivate him to perfect the way of the sword, except the thing itself. Outlawed pirate or shichibukai, it makes no difference to him how others choose to define him. All alliances are temporary illusions at best, and he considers himself stronger for his independence. A swordsman ultimately always fights alone.

 

 

Mihawk looks down, to where Zoro is now sitting on a pile of rubble, arms propped on his knees. His expression is less angry now, control being regained. Mihawk notices that the young swordsman’s eyes are gazing in a familiar direction. Broodingly, towards the sea. Where his nakama are.

_One day, he will come to seek me again. For a different purpose._

Mihawk notes this thought dispassionately, without anger. It is what it is.

 

 

Below him Zoro stands up again. Walks to a pile of broken stone. Bends down and picks up two more large pieces, hefting them in his hands, judging their weight. Then raises them up to either side, his finely-sculpted shoulders bracing before they steady: bearing the load.

For better or for worse, Zoro’s path is inextricably bound up with his nakama. He will never follow Mihawk’s solitary path. Whatever else he learns from his teacher, he will never learn that. Weakness or strength, his nakama are part of what drives him onwards, along with the white katana that he never lets out of his sight.

 

 

Mihawk turns away from the window. Walks to the door and goes though, closing it behind him. His footsteps sound loud on the stone floor, the only noise in the long, empty corridor. Solitude enshrines him in silence, restoring an equilibrium he values. An ordered state, as distinct from the chaos that human interaction invariably brings.

When the two years are up Zoro will depart. Mihawk will ensure that Perona leaves with him, at least for a while. The young swordsman will be reunited with such of his nakama who still survive. Mihawk will be freed of his pupil. The equilibrium of solitude will return.

_It is what it is._

 

 

Mihawk’s footfalls echo against the impassive flagstones. He notes something that is not anger, flowering in his mind. Registers its colour, its unexpected sharpness. Holds it there in his mind, just long enough.

Then he moves on. Thinking that tonight he will drink wine, a fine vintage red. Warm in his mouth, like victory. Strong like blood.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another one-shot fic that had to be written and posted to get it out of my head.
> 
> Partly inspired by the Jean-Pierre Melville quote, from the film Le Samouraï:  
> 'There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle.'
> 
> ...Also by the lovely MiZo fic To Fall Down At Your Door, by coffeelacedwords. <3


End file.
